La France - Deuxième Partie

(Typing up the archives of my life in no particular order)

Late August 2004 - Paris, France - with Julie

"A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life." - Thomas Jefferson

Again a night train spilled my sister and I out, exhausted, onto the streets of Paris. This time we’d come from Barcelona and without the luxury of a sleeping carriage and this time the crafty city conspired wholly against our prejudice and consequently, any type of poor disposition would have been utterly impossible to maintain.

It was a pristine morning at a latitude of 48° 51' North and a longitude of 2° 21' East, in city on earth most commonly known as Paris. Paris is the capital of the country of France and on the day we arrived, sunshine filtered through nothing but deep blue sky before it fell gently on the Eiffel tower or sparkled into dewdrops across the green grass of the Champ de Mars.* The metros were too easy to figure out, the signs too well placed, the locals too eager to offer pleasant, upbeat assistance and the Japanese tourists too quick to agree to take our picture. We simply had no choice but to bask in the happiness and joie de vivre that comes with such a perfect day.

All too soon, we were packed back on a train that took us to a plane that took us back to a more familiar latitude and longitude. When this photo was taken of the two of us, standing, smiling, only 24 hours or so away from home, we both knew at the time that it was the end of our own belle époque. It was the end of my first summer abroad. The end of my first real journey. It was the beginning of everything.

*This is possibly not a scientifically backed statement, but it also possibly is.

La France - Première Partie

(Typing up the archives of my life in no particular order)

August 2004 - Paris, France - with Julie

"Travel is only glamorous in retrospect." - Paul Theroux

To arrive in a city, in that city of all cites, in the manner in which we did, was probably a colossal disgrace. That said, it must be conceded that we were hardly the first pair of exhausted, vagabonding souls to tumble, filthy and unkempt, down upon her old streets. Parisians are, by stereotype anyway, contradictorily beautiful and dirty. An occasional narcissist, I used myself as a yardstick, and felt that they were all fashion store mannequins come to life. Beautiful, elegant, composed and despicable because I wasn’t.

Julie hated Paris; hated France; hated the French. Having not yet experienced any of it for myself, I have to admit my views were thus skewed by her uncharacteristically overpowering opinion of the place. My younger sister had spent the better portion of her 21 years traipsing about after me, forced to agree (verbally at least) with my varied, changing, and endlessly adamant opinions. Fair was fair, so I hated the place with her. Glowered in solidarity.

Julie and I had ridden on an overnight train from Frankfurt and, upon arriving, had haphazardly planted our dirty selves and belongings on a nice bench in an attractively manicured plaza, like non-native, invasive, American weeds in a pretty French flowerbed. We huddled together for several hours in our identical “cold weather” outfits – jeans, tennis shoes, long sleeved black shirts and off-white jackets – awaiting dawn, warmth and our train to Biarritz and then to the Spanish border. 

Months before, while preparing for our excursion abroad, the two of us had tirelessly reviewed all potential clothing options and combinations before agreeing upon the best possible wardrobe for our trip. The somewhat obvious (though entirely unforeseen) result of our careful planning was the nullification of a nearly 16 year old veto of matching sister outfits. So we matched as we sat. We matched as Julie told her anti-French tale yet another time. We matched as I brushed my teeth on the bench and we matched as I spat toothpaste (having no where else to do so) in the pretty, manicured flowerbed. Then we ceased to match because I had both cleaner teeth and worse manners.

31

“Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.” – Jim Fiebig

And I am 31 today. Getting up there now for sure. A third of my life is now behind me, which in fact is perhaps optimistic. Still, I am not sure if you really can count anything before 18 because life is not really your own before that point. And, because of the way my birthday always situated itself at the beginning of the school year, my free will did not really start until I was about 19. This would make me 12 today in what I will refer to as “adult years”.

Having always been a person who continually aims to perfect herself (generally falling embarrassingly short but eternally optimistic), I thought I would create a general portrait of the woman in her early 30s that I would like to strive to become. This activity spices up my typical list of goals; gets the creative juices flowing if you will. The portrayal of this woman of course takes into account my current situation and personality, which is to say, given my life as of this moment, what kind of woman would I like to aspire to become. It is as follows:

A Portrait of the Woman in Her Early 30s That I Would Like to Be

This woman is organized (at least in the minutia of life, if not yet the big picture). She does her best to keep in touch with friends and family. She does things out of her comfort zone. Frequently. Daily. She is brave and knows bravery really means still doing things when you are afraid, rather than not being afraid in the first place. She knows that difficulty, frustration and hardship are a triad of things that deepen memory, build character and create a well-lived life.

This is a woman who is an early riser. She loves tea at sunrise. She loves outdoor freedom and indoor coziness. She is passionate about books and despite being relatively well read, compels herself to read and learn almost obsessively to mask and make up for her poor education. She writes. She writes. She better start writing! She makes a point to keep up with world news and politics because it interests her and because she loves to listen to well articulated debates on everything from the influence of Iran’s Ayatollah to the challenges primary schools face in Vietnam and she has found it is easier to listen if she has an idea of what is going on.

This woman loves children. Always has. And there are three little girls in particular, the time with whom is always labeled: most important; most remarkable; most memorable. This woman is patient.

This woman is healthy, strong, beautiful and in good shape. She drinks plenty of water, green tea and an adequate amount of red wine. She eats lots of fresh fruits and veggies and tiny bits of expensive cheese. She loves wandering around aimlessly through outdoor markets in foreign lands. When nutritious, balanced meals are unavailable, as is sometimes the case, she lightly consumes other food and does not let this worry her.

This is a woman who loves learning, and languages in particular. Besides English, she speaks Spanish for its usefulness and French for its literature and constantly studies vocabulary for all three languages. This woman is well traveled, floats through cities effortlessly and has mastered living life on a global scale. She is as comfortable with wealth as she is with poverty but simply and stubbornly refuses to allow circumstances to squeeze her life into anything smaller.

Starting Again, Again

Once upon a time there was a girl who traveled and adventured around the whole world for many years and, right before her 30th birthday, came home very ready to settle down. So she got a job in a pretty little city, found an apartment with nice roommates, reconnected with friends and family (cups of tea with her mother, cocktails with her sister), and even met a wonderful man who, of all things, liked reading international news aloud to her.

You could say this girl lived happily ever after...

but what is the fun in that?

Ometepe, Nicaragua - Part 1

Day One 5.17.10

Never could I glimpse the sail of an outbound ship but my heart would stumble and my throat grow tight. ~ The Walking Drum

At 6am Monday morning, my alarm went off and I awoke from an anxious sleep. My eyes went instantly to my backpack in the corner. Still there. I was all set. I rushed around the house getting ready that morning before finally saying goodbye to my poor dog whom I loved and whom I hoped my crazy Nica roomies wouldn’t beat too much while I was away, and swinging the (lighter than normal) backpack onto my shoulders. It felt so good. I felt like myself again.

My Stuff

I had been living in Granada, Nicaragua for the past 7 weeks, going to Spanish classes Monday thru Friday, and in my time off, relishing the noise, heat, salsa, rum, language and chaos of the third world whilst of course maintaining the endless social obligations that go with my life here. On the weekends, I switch gears and step into Granada’s telenovela (For various socioeconomic reasons, I tend to run with a ridiculously fast crowd in this city, though I try not to do so for more than 2 days at a time).

So with a mixture of excitement, relief, nerves, and of course guilt (I should be in class), I took a week off from lessons to head to Ometepe with Craig, a British friend I’d made at the school. I was determined to speak as much Spanish as possible to make up for the temporary abandonment of my studies.

I rode the city bus in from the suburbs and met Craig at his hotel at 7:45am, ready to hop on a bus. Of course the third world laughed at our ambitious plans of an early start to a productive day and put us back in our place as apprentices of patience. Craig had sent his laundry out the day before and due to electricity failures in the town it refused to come back to him until about 9:40am, at which point we’d missed the last bus to Rivas (I’d checked the times the day before). I decided to run to the bus station to double check that there would be no more transport, and at 10:10, the 9:20 bus was just pulling away. I sadly watched it go before learning that obviously there were more buses that day (duh! Silly me.), the next one left at 12:30.

Navigating a path through the busy markets once again, I returned to Craig and we formulated a new plan. Since we wouldn't realistically arrive in Rivas until 2:45pm and then in the port town of San Jorge until bit later, it would be about 5pm when we would finally ferry into Moyogalpa, and 6pm when we would arrive by taxi to Altagracia, on the other side of the island. This was where our friends Meredith, Mikey and Veita were staying, and we decided it seemed far easier to get on the 4 hour ferry, here in Granada, that embarked at 2pm and landed in Altagracia at 6pm. It was decided.

After a quick BLT lunch, we headed down to the docks, bought 1^st class tickets, and boarded the upper deck of the boat. Normally I would happily save a couple of dollars and take a seat in 2^nd class with the rest of the locals, but I’d taken this boat before and 4 hours locked in the airless, windowless, belly of the boat with hundreds of people and their children and wares made me appreciate the fact that I had a few extra dollars to spare. We spent the trip sitting on comfortable seats in an air-conditioned room, looking out big windows, and occasionally stepping out onto the breezy deck for fresh air and photos. I took pleasure in the luxury.

Lunch

Granada's Disappearing Skyline

Goodbye Volcan Mombacho

Headed toward Ometepe and Volcan Concepcion

At 6pm, the boat pulled into Ometepe and chaos ensued. Since Craig was traveling with everything, maybe including his kitchen sink (how do I meet people like that??!!) he had to check a bag and therefore find it again. Meanwhile, I found a man shouting our names that (our highly organized) friend Meredith had sent from the hotel to fetch the two of us and our other friends on the boat, Mark and CarlyAnn. When eventually Craig and his billions of things found each other again, we all piled into the truck and traversed the several kilometers of bumpy dirt road to Altagracia; a joyful meeting with our old friends from the Spanish school followed.

Bottles of rum and soda were pulled out instantly and drinks were poured as we toasted to the success of ending up in the place we had planned to be. The hotelier brought us ice for free, visibly thrilled that there was very little room left in his inn. Later we went out for street food, paying $3 apiece for local grub (rice, beans, plantain chips, hot carrot salad, cabbage salad and BBQ chicken), stacked high and rising like volcanoes from the plates. It was a happy atmosphere at the table and after stuffing ourselves, we fed leftovers to the (slightly plump) street dogs and went out for just one more drink which of course turned into two, and then three.

Budget

City Bus: $0.17

BLT Lunch: $3.33

4 Hour Ferry To Altagracia: $4.28

Hotel: $6.00

Dinner: $2.86

Beer: $1.43

Total: $18.07

Malawi - Part 3

There was a knock at the door, opening it, I found a nervous looking Liam. Though he’d just walked out of the house, I pretended to be surprised.

He cleared his throat, “Um, I, um, am here to pick you up for our date...if that’s ok.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m ready now, so ok, so we can go.” I told him while looking bashfully at the ground. I stepped outside and he grabbed me and dipped me low for a silly, overacted kiss. Laughing, we walked to a French restaurant that happened to be right across the street from where we were staying. At 7pm, we were seated by a waiter who told us outright that we ought to order as quickly as possible so he could go home sooner. Ah, African customer service. Much to our waiter's dismay, the restaurant soon filled up, and he would be obliged to actually do work.

(this pic is from the website because we were too busy eating to bother with a camera)

The meal was indeed the long awaited feast we were after. Fresh bread, a delicious salad, goose liver pate, tasty soup, stuffed chicken a la Blou, and Malawi’s famous ‘pommes frites’ (French fries). It is always amazing while travelling how quickly a person can recover from being a total mess. Though I pined for a slinky, black cocktail dress and a pair of sexy red stilettos, a simple hot shower, shaved legs, a new coat of polish on the toes, a dusting of makeup, and luscious French food fixed me up as good as I ever am while on the road.

Since the meal was officially a date, Liam wanted to pay, and since I am notoriously frugal and stress out easily about prices, Liam didn’t want me to even look at the menu and ordered in secret. As our romantic night drew to a close, the check was brought out and Liam placed a wad of kwacha beneath it. Despite explaining to the waiter several times earlier in the evening as to why he was being so secretive, the waiter loudly and meticulously counted the payment from his hands onto the table. One bill at a time. Initially, Liam tried to shush him and get him to go away to do the counting, but this distraction only increased the volume of his voice and his determination to get the job done. Nothing this Muzungu was blabbing about was going to get him to break his concentration! Besides, for heaven’s sake, he was trying to do this right so he could get home!

Defeated, the man across from me placed his elbows on the table and rested a bearded chin on his fists. Our eyes locked and I stifled giggles. A century after the counting began, it ended. Liam gave me his jacket as we walked across the street, tipped invisible hats to the guard, and slowly meandered up the drive. I thanked my handsome suitor for the date, jokingly repeating the cost of the meal several times as I praised the food and the service. With affected ostentation, he boasted of the vast wealth he must obviously possess in order to pay for a dinner of that caliber until we both dissolved into laughs and kisses beneath a cloudy night sky.

At home (as always, I use that term loosely), Liam and I stood in the bathroom as he gently washed and re-bandaged my wounded eyebrow. Since the skin had already closed, I deemed it too late for stitches and decided that Liam’s expert care had been, and was, good enough.

That night, we squeezed onto a soft, twin bed in a warm, cozy room down the hallway of an upper-class home that lay in the well guarded suburbs of Malawi’s southern, and second largest, city. Beyond the borders of the city, a crazy, colorful, immense continent stretched out, teaming with countless peoples, languages, cultures, religions, landscapes and wild animals. Of course there were more dangers to be escaped, thrills to be found, and adventures to be survived, but a soft rain began pitter-pattering onto the roof, and I fell asleep with my face nestled into Liam’s side and nothing but the strange feeling of complete comfort and safety.

Malawi - Part 2

Despite a good deal of early morning running around, Liam, Gavin and I were out of our room at a sluggish 7:40am, ten full minutes after the hotel’s 7:30am (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) checkout time. The receptionist kindly didn’t mention our tardiness and instead pointed us toward the restaurant for our free breakfast.

Shortly after sitting down in the dingy dining room, an overly, awkwardly, submissive waitress brought us our fare. Kneeling on the floor and bowing her head, she clasped my hand and asked if I needed anything else. Tempted as I was to ask for a normal breakfast, I held my tongue and dismissed the woman. Hot water, a tea bag, sugar, a piece of toast, and a big plate of French fries. Disgusting! After drinking my tea plain and eating the toast with my sugar sprinkled on it, I picked at the deep fried potato strips, trying to will the greasy mess into a fruit salad smothered in vanilla yogurt. French fries, we would learn, are the staple Malawian breakfast food…gross!

The dissatisfying meal ingested (and quickly beginning to block our arteries), we jumped in the back seat of the Presbyterian pickup truck we’d travelled with the evening before. The city of Blantyre finally seemed to be within our sights.

On the way there, we learned that Malawi was less than a week away from its controversial presidential elections. Election time can be tense anywhere, but when a nation has only had 2 previous elections, peaceful democracy has the potential to break down into chaotic violence, so it’s not necessarily the most auspicious time to visit a place.

Before we could say ‘scandal and political infighting’, it was time for a quick lunch. Our ride pulled over and 50 kids ran to the windows hawking bananas and fried, shish-kebabed parakeets. Well, maybe not parakeets, but tiny birds that you were in theory supposed to pop into your mouth whole, bones and all, but in reality, I had to take in 2 crunchy parts, each speedily chased down by an entire mini-banana. Gavin had just found out in Beira that his childhood pet parakeet had died of (very) old age and I think he felt as sad about lunch as I had felt about breakfast.

Seventy-five hours after deciding I wanted to get there, our group managed to the cover the implausibly long 150 miles and finally (FINALLY!!!) arrive in the city of Blantyre. It was everything I’d wished for and envisioned it would be. The crumbling dilapidation and neglect so afflicting both Mozambique and Zimbabwe was behind us. Ahead, lay spotless avenues lined with flowering trees and streetlights, crisscrossing through a city of dazzling, modern buildings. Internet cafes, supermarkets, bakeries, banks, and restaurants bustled and beckoned. We had at last reached civilization.

Saying goodbye to our Godsent lift, we set off looking for accommodation. Wanting to recover from the accident and journey, Liam and I were eager to splash out a little more than usual at the Henderson Street Guest House, but after walking through its idyllic gardens, we discovered at reception that we weren’t the only ones with that idea; the beautiful place was completely booked. Unsure where else to go, we popped into a café advertizing itself only as “PIZZA AND ICECREAM!” for an early dinner.

“Hello! We were wondering what kind of pizzas you guys had here.” Liam said to the waitress.

A blank look was followed by, “We don’t…serve pizzas here…But this menu.”

Liam took it and chuckled, “Well, do you have any ice cream?”

“Umm…I have to check first…” replied the slow (to the point of handicapped) woman, “But I don’t…think we do.” I have found on this trip and my previous one, that Africans, in general, are intelligent and often witty, if not particularly entrepreneurial, but despite the huge percentages of English speakers in most countries, waiters and waitresses are possibly the most useless, unintelligent people on the continent. All street children speak far better English and are usually a good deal sharper.

We ordered scrumptious and, surprisingly inexpensive, chicken and rice dishes. While the three of us ate, the manager, an energetic, (intelligent) racially mixed girl named Taz came over to chat. After recalling our luckless hotel search, we asked if she had any recommendations. Running off first to call her roommates, she offered to let us stay in the guest bedroom of her home. Without more ado, we accepted the proposal, lady luck smiling on us once again. (Taz, we found out later, was not shockingly, Zimbabwean. She probably moved to Malawi just to help tourists out with free accommodation.)

After successfully making our way by minibus to her home in the suburbs, Liam told the guard at the gate that, “The madam sent us.” He let us in and we walked above 5 impeccably manicured acres to Taz’s 4-bedroom home and met our new housemates. First there was Chris, a white, very laid back, out of work, pot smoking Zimbabwean who was either playing X-Box or watching movies during the entire duration of our stay, then there was Thomas, an immense, Schwarzenegger-esque German guy who loved travelling and hiking and was stuck working in Malawi, frequently doing the latter until he’d saved enough money to do more of the former (in light of where and how he lived, he wasn’t trying too awfully hard to save his paychecks), and, the most recent addition, besides us, was Jules, a pretty German girl, and Thomas’ girlfriend of slightly less than 2 whole weeks (there was a surprisingly, and weirdly, high number of lovey-dovey couple collages taped around the house for the two of them having been together such a short time).

One by one, we abandoned conversation with our new friends for the blessedly running water of the in-house HOT SHOWER! Whether it was exhaustion, the glorious feeling of being clean, or the marijuana fumes emanating from the living room, Liam, Gavin and I all slept like the dead.

Day 11 Budget

$0.12 Bananas

$0.42 souvenirs for girls I nannied for

$5.12 lift to Blantyre

$2.73 dinner

$0.46 minibus to Taz’s house

$6.36 oatmeal and powdered milk

Total: $15.21